Will lights every be installed for Wimbledon which might help with the rain delays? If you had lights you could extend play to help make up for all the rain delays you get. Even if you never changed the schedule it would help when play ran long and you had rain delays. Also on cloudy days you cannot play so late at night. They could always finish matches that ran long in the no tiebreakers final set. I can also remember the second semifnal in the 2001 Wimbledon in which rain stopped the match in the fourth set with Tim Henman leading two sets to one. The rain stopped about 8:30 PM but they decided the ligh was rather bad with the clouds. If they had lights they could have resumed play and if the rain stayed away have finished the match that day instead of getting more rain delays and having it stopped in the fifth set on Saturday and finishing on Sunday and pushing back the final to Monday. Even if they could not have finshed because of more rain they might have gotten enough in so it would have finished on Saturday and the final would have been on Sunday.

They don't have lights at the French Open either but Paris has less rain than Wimbledon and they can play with a light rain at the French Open since it is clay. After all they do have to water the clay down at times.

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Thomas

I strongly believe that lights will not be installed at All England, simple reason, grass needs time to recover, if you put lights less time to recover for the next day.They are making a huge improvement installing the roof over Centre Court, lights mmm donīt see it happening.

First of all the lights would not be used every day and no night matches would ever be scheduled. They would only be used when rain delays matches and a match that runs long because there are no tiebreakers in the final could have the light turned on for it to finish. Maybe lights could in installed at the French Open because you would not have the problems in having the grass to recover in darkness. That could help with rain delays and alllow night matches.

If Wrigley Field can intall lights then no place is sacred. Being a traditionalist, I hope they don't.

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I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammible and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. - Mitch Hedberg

They have mentioned the dew problem when it gets into the end of the day. This happens when it starts to cool down. It seems to happen most on clear evenings when you have had rain earlier in the day and the air is more liklely to be damp. That is when you are more likley to still be playing matches because they have been halted some earlier in the day. On the other hand cloudy but totally dry days will get the least dew problems because it will not cool down so much. Then play will more likely be over because it has not been stopped. Also any rain that falls from the clouds will most likely evaporate before it hits the ground. It is only when you have matches thar are 15-13 in the final set that you will get problems. Perhpas they should do like the US open and have tiebreakers in all final sets. Tiebreakers first started in 1970. At one time at Wimbledon tiebreaks didn't start until it was 8-8 in the set rather than 6-6 in the set. Then Wimbledon also had tiebreakers in the final set that started at 8-8 so you could see matches that ended at 9-8 in the final set. Also the scoreing in a tiebreaker was different. The first player served twice, then the second player served and the first play to reach five be a margin of one won the tiebreak. If a tiebreak was tied at 4-4 the next point was a sudden death point. The person who served first clearly had the advantage in the tiebreak because it the person who served won on every serve it was the person who served first that always won the tiebreak.

I don't think a retractable roof would have to require light. The roof would be made of glass so light could be let in. They are having to work all the out before the start constructions of the glass roof.

Glass eh? U sure about that? I know there are retractable roofs out there on football stadiums, at least one, I saw a show on it once. Does it have glass? If it moves that much, I doubt they will want glass in it, although it would be cool.

If not glass it might be a clear plastic. If the retrcatable roof is not transparent then lights would have to be intalle on Center Court so long matches that go 15-13 in the final set could be exteneded until they are over.

The roof the use in Halle is not clear but white to let the light in. It is made of plastic that fold up. This tournament had the most problems with weather because it was the most northerly of the spring series. Also it was moved to the last of the sring series after Rome to get better weather. This now puts them in order of weather from the wamest city first to the coldest city last. In the fall Masters sereies that are indoors they have Madrid first followed by Paris but Madrid probably has warmer weather in October than Halle has in May. In fact Madrid should move to spring and be an outdoor tournament and Halle would move to fall and be an indoor tournament since Germany had an indoor fall tournament before it was replaced by Madrid.